At the heart of the Bishop of Cloyne affair is a dark reality that is truly shocking.

Bishop John Magee was carrying out Vatican orders when he delegated the responsibility for the pedophile priests in his diocese to an underling and allowed him to overlook the worst abusers.

One wonders what pressing tasks the Bishop had that were so urgent that he could turnover such a critical and vital task to an underling.

Now we know why -so the Vatican fingerprints would not be on it.

The Vatican has long refused to sign off on the strict code of conduct put together by the Irish church after the sordid revelations about the past emerged. The key one was to report all suspected pedophiles to police.

As a Vatican man, through and through, Magee was following Vatican orders.

The Cloyne cover-up began into events that happened after the worst of the previous excesses were in the public domain and the Irish church had issued new firm guidelines which included giving any information to police.__________________READ MORE:Papal nuncio 'very distressed' over Ireland's Cloynes report

We can guess what his own scandal was after he attempted to kiss a 17-year old seminary student and said he dreamed about him, a fact included in the Murphy report

But he clearly never forgot his Vatican roots. It is a place where the current Pope has much to answer for on this issue, where Cardinal Law of Boston, a notorious enabler of pedophiles was promoted, where Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, the most courageous cleric standing in the face of this pedophile scandal, has been ignored and belittled.

The Irish government called in the Papal Nuncio in Ireland yesterday and demanded a Vatican response saying it was 'absolutely unacceptable' that the Vatican had intervened in Ireland and discouraged priests from reporting crimes against innocent children.